Vanessa Sloan Morgan

Doctor of Philosophy (ABD)

Vanessa Sloan Morgan

Biography: Vanessa understands themself as a sixth generation white settler from unceded Coast Salish Territories on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Involved with the HEC Lab since 2010, Vanessa is now a guest to unceded Musqueum, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First First Nations / Vancouver, BC where they work as a Project Coordinator and graduate student at Queen’s University. Vanessa’s primary role with the HEC Lab involves documenting the complexities of navigating the land question in BC, specifically through a SSHRC funded community-based and directed project exploring modern treaty negotiation and implementation. This study and Vanessa’s previous graduate work, which was conducted within Heather and Huu-ay-aht First Nations, a Maa-nulth Treaty signatories, long-standing research partnership, has greatly informed Vanessa’s PhD research – an overly ambitious project that seeks to critically engage settler responsibility in the settler colonial context of Canada. Heavily informed by anarchic and anti-colonial thought, the goal of this research is to encourage responsible thought and thoughtful action in regards to Indigenous-settler and (dependently extractive) environmental relations. Vanessa successfully her PhD on October 5, 2017. When not feverishly trying to meet deadlines, Vanessa can be found frolicking with their four-legged companion, Halem.

Abstract: This study utilized the Maa-nulth Treaty to explore contemporary Indigenous-Settler relations in BC. Using digital storytelling, youth from one of the five signatory Maa-nulth First Nations identified their priorities for their Nation in a post-Treaty era. These stories were contrasted with a discourse analysis of mainstream media coverage surrounding the Treaty and a survey of local (mainly Settler) residents’ perceptions to explore dominant perspectives pertaining to the comprehensive land claims agreement. While youths’ ideas for the future were anchored to their Indigenous cultural identity, albeit integrating technology and novel art forms, Settlers’ perspectives remained statically centered upon ill-informed strains of colonial thought premised upon socio-political and economic stereotypes. These findings point to the need for Settlers to engage in their own processes of decolonization.

In an ever-long struggle to make academic writing appealing, accessible, and relevant, Vanessa is a correspondent for a magazine called Intercontinental Cry. This magazine reports on Indigenous led and anti-capitalist/colonial struggles around the world. Vanessa writes on topics concerning Indigenous-settler relations. The magazine is open access, crowd-funded, has a creative commons licence, and can be found at: https://intercontinentalcry.org/